LTE gets a 40,000 base station boost: Nokia Siemens the big winner

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 21 July 2010 16:34

IT Industry - Strategy

Nokia Siemens Networks has been awarded, provisionally, a $US7 billion eight year contract to build and manage a 40,000 base station LTE network that will cover 92 percent of the US population.

The sheer size of the contract is likely to give Nokia Siemens enormous economies of scale enabling it to reduce prices of its LTE infrastructure equipment, putting pressure on other vendors to follow suit.

Nokia Siemens will be responsible for network design, equipment manufacturing and installation and network operations and maintenance. The contract however is still subject to final approval by both the Nokia Siemens Networks and the LightSquared boards. LightSquared anticipates that network build-out will generate more than 100,000 direct and indirect private sector jobs within five years.

The company claims to have 59MHz of spectrum, nationwide, but has not said in what band this is or whether it is contiguous. It says only that the spectrum is "in an advantageous frequency position."

LightSquared's ambitious claim is that it will "revolutionise communications in the United States." It says that, as the nation's first wholesale-only integrated wireless broadband and satellite network, it will provide wireless broadband capacity to a diverse group of customers, including retailers; wireline and wireless communication service providers; cable operators; device manufacturers; web players; content providers; and many others.

"The LightSquared network will allow these partners to offer satellite-only, terrestrial-only, or integrated satellite-terrestrial services to their end users."

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